This photo is one of my very favorites of me as a mom. For vain reasons? Heck, yes. I look at it and think: hmmm, I like my hair that dark shade; and wow, that’s some lovely décolletage (thanks to nursing); and awww, isn’t that the sweetest little thumb-sucking boy you’ve ever seen?
I also love this picture for reasons less vain and perhaps more revealing. It’s a candid shot, and a genuinely happy moment – a flash of proof that such moments did exist during what was otherwise a pretty bleary and often grouchy time. That baby, my second, has a darling disposition but was (and is, even at two) a thoroughly rotten sleeper. He’s about four months old in this picture, which means I was many, many weeks into a year of military-grade sleep deprivation – with a two-year-old testing my patience during the day even as he demanded my attention all night long.
I was tired but, at least in this moment, I was happy. And it’s nice to look at a photograph and be reminded of that.
The topic of moms in photographs has taken off in the last few weeks, beginning with Huffington Post blogger Allison Tate’s piece The Mom Stays in the Picture. Allison’s essay, in which she comes to terms with her own reluctance to be photographed and makes a case for all moms to ‘get in the picture,’ has inspired some beautiful responses (like this one from Aidan Donnelly Rowley and this one from Catherine Connors) and prompted a whole movement of moms who are committing to getting out from behind the camera and being in more pictures with their kids.
In her essay Allison writes:
It seems logical. We’re sporting mama bodies and we’re not as young as we used to be. We don’t always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think.
But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves — women, mamas, people living lives. Avoiding the camera because we don’t like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay?
While I totally agree with her call to action, I don’t think I personally avoid being in photos with my kids to the degree that Allison describes. In fact, with the handy little camera-flip-around-thingy (what? that’s a technical term) on the iPhone, my kids and I have fun taking pictures of ourselves as a cozy little threesome. Yes, I selectively choose which ones to share and post, and I’m totally guilty of avoiding the camera altogether on days where I don’t think I look my best, but in general I’m not snapshot-phobic.
For me, it’s the candid shots that tell the real story: the photos that catch me in real-life mom moments doing the messy work of mothering. The reason I like the one I posted here so much is that I look calm, serene, happy, and in love with my baby. I think most of us can agree that’s what you call an extremely lucky photographic capture because – news flash! – I don’t always feel that way and I know for a fact I don’t always look that way.
I think if I have hang-ups about being in photos with my kids, it’s more about how I look when I don’t know my photo is being taken. My fear? That I’m frazzled and disheveled, that I’m frowning at my laptop while life happens around me, that I’m sporting an impatient and furrowed brow instead of a loving gaze, that my body language is more “let’s get this day over with” than “let’s remember this moment always.”
I’m sure if I went through my tens of thousands of photos for evidence, both extremes would be represented and every variation in between. Because, of course, we all have both kinds of moments – the ones where we can’t get enough and the ones where we’ve had enough – a hundred times every day. And like Meagan wrote in her Babble column recently (referring to the comical and revealing off-camera conversations caught on home videos): “It’s not always flattering … but it’s so, so real.”
And, I remind myself, the “real” that feels a little unflattering at this moment is the very same “real” that I’ll want evidence of in the future. I want to remember what I looked like on an average day – ponytailed and make-up-free – and see over time the expanding and then thinning of my body as it experienced three pregnancies in five years. I want the family portraits and posed shots to be well balanced with examples of “mom caught on camera, living life” – whether or not those pictures cast me in the most flattering light.
I want to remember the pretty pictures like the one above, yes; but I don’t want to airbrush the whole album because those candid moments caught on camera are proof that I was here, in the picture, in the flesh.
The image below is another one of my very favorite family photos. That’s my grandma on the left, bathing my aunt in the kitchen sink as my mom looks on from the right (along with a cousin? or neighbor boy? not sure who the little guy is). I’m guessing that at the time it was taken my grandma had her hands full – that baby was her third (of four, eventually) and we all know it’s not the easiest thing in the world to give a slippery naked infant a sink bath while preschoolers run around your kitchen.
So if I look beyond what I see in the photo, I can guess that maybe there was a little stress in her life – but I don’t see it in the picture. I see the way she looks at that baby, and the baby back up at her. I see the charming vintage details on everything from the curtains to the windowsill to the countertops. I see the short sleeves and suntanned arms and imagine it was summertime. I see my mom look at her baby sister the way my oldest looked at her brother when I gave him baths in the sink.
I know that the floor might not have been spotless and another child might have been whining in the background, but what I see is real life and real motherhood cast in the most perfect light of nostalgia.
And it looks good, right?
I completely agree about candid photos! And there is no excuse in this day and age for me not to be in some of them. You look adorable in that postpartum picture above. If I looked half that cute at that stage, I might not take such issues with my own image… but that’s me and my personal thing, of course. Thank you for this post!
Oh, thanks for stopping by Allison! Your piece resonated with so many women (as you know). And let’s be clear: for that one photo, there are about a thousand very unflattering postpartum shots of me. That’s the power of this blogging life, right? We get to choose which ones to share? 😉 Seriously, though, thanks for the call to action and your wise words in the HuffPo piece. Important stuff.
That is a great picture of you! You look happy and your arms look buff! I don’t necessarily avoid being in the pictures but, since I’m usually behind the camera, I do find that I’m in less pictures than I’d like to be.
Thanks, Angela! You’re sweet. Incidentally, I clicked over to your blog from your link and that first photo of you making a kissy face with your little one is so sweet. Way to “get in the picture” – that photo is what it’s all about. So cute. 🙂
Not once in my life have I looked at a picture of my mother and thought, “I wish she looked different.” I never thought that in person, either. She always looked just right to me. And I try to remember that when I have doubts about how I’ll look in photos.
We did a photo card for Baguette’s birth announcement. It featured three pictures: one of her about to come home from the hospital; one of her and Mr. Sandwich, her holding his fingers; and one of me with her at home.
In that last one, I’m cradling her in my arms as I sit on our bed. I’m wearing a nursing or maternity top and pajama pants. On top of the headboard behind me, you can see the wrist braces I sleep in when my carpal tunnel is acting up (which it did toward the end of my pregnancy and after Baguette was born). Chances are very good I didn’t comb my hair that day. Or possibly the day before.
It’s one of the most intimate photos I’ve ever taken, and it was the only one I considered sending to everyone I knew, because it showed exactly what was going on in my life at that moment, and what it felt like. I love that picture.
That just about says it all, right? So true. Thank you.
Beautiful pic! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you!
You DO look beautiful in that picture. So serene and just … content. My favorite pictures of my family are candids – not the posed pictures at all. But I do agree with Allison that I find the more I look, I am hardly in any…
Kiran
Thank you, Kiran! Here’s to getting in the picture more! 🙂
It’s funny how we tend to be harsh with our own pictures but can easily see the beauty of our mom’s and other mothers in photos. I am making an effort to be in more pictures thanks to that essay. I don’t avoid photos but I think I do more of the videotaping so I’m not captured on video as much.
That is so true – and I think that could be expanded to more than just photos, right? We’re forgiving of others’ imperfections when we’re harshest on our own? Hmmm…
I love this, Sarah! As much as I enjoyed and appreciated Allison’s essay, I couldn’t relate exactly to her call to action. You see, in my house, my husband is the photographer and I’m in way more pictures with my kids than he is. Not only has your post inspired me to make sure to snap more photos of him living those candid moments with our kids, it’s also made me want to spend some time with our albums in Picasa, drinking in those bleary-eyed, messy-haired candids as deeply as I do the posed, professional shots.
That shot of you and your son is just gorgeous. One of my own favorites is a picture of my oldest nuzzling my now 3yo when he was only a few days old. The baby is in my arms, dozing after a nursing session, and I am looking at my “big” boy with absolute adoration.
xo
You’re right – it is different when your husband is the man with the camera most of the time. I bet you have a treasure-trove in Picasa of candid moments of you that you didn’t even realize were there! Your kiddos will love looking at them someday. 🙂
One of my favorites of myself is one my wife took of me. It was of me and my, then, three month old son, sacked out on the couch. He was snuggled up on my chest with his little bum sticking out completely asleep. I was totally zonked out, mouth open, snoring. Entirely reflective of the long night we had both had bouncing around at 2 in the morning as he was totally refusing to go to sleep.
Oh, that sounds like such a sweet picture. Thanks for the comment!